Rhys Jones

Coventry South needs a by-election soon Zarah Sultana has no mandate for disarming the people of Britain and betraying Ukraine

"To say 'Zelenskyy is no friend of the working class' is an insulting, facile distraction from the fact that Sultana refuses to support the Ukrainian people’s fight for existence."

Proper cold fury and moral clarity from @paulmason.bsky.social on Sultana.

open.substack.com/pub/htsf/p/c...

Roath park lake in 1889!
Has changed a bit !

Fascinating piece (again) by @jburnmurdoch.ft.com. This spike in mid-life mortality is so much greater than I’d have expected.

on.ft.com/47lh62V

Interesting interview with Nicola Johnston by @sionbarry.bsky.social. This bit (on the URC and Six Nations equity deals to CVC) is unbelivable. How can you not understand such a fundamental point about the deal you’re signing? Was the same true about the WRU?
www.business-live.co.uk/enterprise/r...

Got to be that I’m not on TikTok, and don’t have the slightest interest in going on it (I’m 21 for context).

Frustrating game overall. Missed kicks, poor discipline and an inconsistent set piece turn out costly. Weird to be disappointed after getting 2 points in Thomond Park, but the win was there for the taking. #CARVMUN

Brilliant catch from Bowen! #MUNVCAR

Do forward passes just not count anymore?! #MUNVCAR

Very good thread. There’s a need for cautious optimism in govt comms - will be hard with a difficult budget coming up, but is the only way of turning their position around.

Also I do actually believe that 1.5mn houses could be built on brownfield land but that is the homes we need to build in this parliament. Therefore even if we’d listen to them we’d still need to build on greenfield by the next parliament. Much more sensible to build on a combination from the start.

A very fun piece about a very annoying practice.

Donald Trump’s adventures in Windsorland The US president luxuriated in a warm bath of royal pomp and circumstance

A brilliant piece on Trump’s state visit.

on.ft.com/4nGi28Q

Here's one factor English commentators will miss: on the left is a map of Welsh speakers, on the right is voting intention

The Virtues (Channel 4) is mine. Unbelivably emotional and also contains the best acting performance of Stephen Graham’s career (which is high praise as he’s so good in everything).

The crumbling seaside palaces at the centre of Britain’s asylum crisis [FREE TO READ] How one hotelier built an empire from beloved community assets — and a government struggling to cope with a surge in migration

FT mag piece from me: Spent a long time looking into the Britannia hotel chain, beneficiaries of a vast amount of taxpayer money via the asylum system

on.ft.com/47HEE46

How likely is it that the next DL will be appointed DPM? Will it be seen as Starmer ‘ignoring the members’ if they are not?

Doesn’t that show the plateau happening after the smoking ban, not before?

Are they going to provide the current figures so that we can have some baseline to work from? No, of course not we’ll just have to have a complete stab in the dark instead! Also why are the semi pro men / women two different categories, but the pro level combined?!

‘I treat the sun with the contempt which it deserves. It ... I return from holiday painfully burnt – and with no one to blame but myself

I picked a fight with some hydrogen that's 93 million miles away. I lost. On my hatred of the sun, and the horror of sunburn.

observer.co.uk/news/columni...

Thanks!

I’m a season ticket holder but haven’t received an email. Is there a link to the consultation?

Screenshot from an article. Text reads ‘Cave turns to me. “So what’s yout skill then, spinning stuff into a story?” “No,” I reply. “My skill is keeping a straight face when someone tells me something, and inside I’m thinking: fucking hell.”’

A fascinating, but disturbing read. This bit in particular did make me chuckle!

www.ft.com/content/0e24...

Cardiff Council are thinking of building a new HQ when County Hall is demolished in the arena developments. Surely moving into Cathays Park instead is a perfect opportunity to save some money?

I’d like to see the subsidies split by line. I suspect the more rural lines account for a large share of the subsidy for a tiny proportion of travellers. Swapping those trains for an equivalent bus route could increase frequency and save a lot of money for little time penalty.

Increasing the amount of the SP and the SP age at the same time is just a transfer from poor to rich pensioners. Better to stop the triple lock (but still increase pension credits) than increase SP age if there are questions about the sustainability of the SP.

Cardiff driver jailed for 16 months for killing teenager Christopher West hit Keely Morgan on 1 May 2023 and she died at the scene.

So if you kill a child by driving carelessly and without insurance you’ll be out of prison within a year, and back behind the wheel within three. Crimes committed behind the wheel aren’t treated as real crimes.

www.bbc.com/news/article...

It’ll be interesting how much the media coverage will focus on who ‘wins’ constituencies when the important thing is how many seats each party wins. I suspect we’ll get a lot of focus on Reform winning seats, and a lot less on Plaid and Labour winning many more seats between them.

Only 5-0 required isn’t it? Should be easy!

But surely they can’t expect a collection of volunteers to run a consultation before every small change like this? Allowing changes to be made and then only removed if there are complaints seems a much more sensible balance?

Have they provided a reason? Seems odd and a real shame otherwise.